Bulgarian fan at an olympic qualifier in 2008. Hat tip to Puck Daddy for the picture.
But then to my dismay, I became aware of Slovakia being on the other end of a thorough bombing in the Olympic qualifiers on September 6th, 2008. Slovakia came out flat, but was able to hold off Bulgaria by a score of 82-0.
Not a typo. In front of a crowd of 37, the final score of the game was literally 82-0. That's a goal every 44 seconds by the Slovaks.
Slovakia started out slow, not scoring until the 57-second mark, and only leading 7-0 after 5 minutes of play. Lucky for them, they scored 12 goals in the next 5 minutes to take a 19-0 lead to the midway point of the first period. They cooled off again, and finished the 3rd period with a very surmountable 31-0 lead. The 2nd period started with a tough battle, as the next goal would be a big one. Luckily it only took 34 seconds for the Slovaks to bury again. By the end of the 2nd period, Slovakia held a 55-0 lead. Making sure to avoid Bulgaria making any miracles happen, Slovakia continued to pour it on in the 3rd. Finally, with 3 minutes left to play, Slovakia scored its 77th goal, at which point Bulgaria gave up, deciding it would be pretty hard to score 77 goals in 3 minutes, so they put their backup goaltender in. The backup had a rough time, allowing all 5 shots she faced to go in. Final score: 82-0.
Bulgaria's starting goaltender did have a pretty admirable performance, making 57 saves. The final shots were 139-0 in favor of Slovakia.
I pulled up the box score and found some interesting tidbits. Here are the stats for the Slovakian players:
Player G A PTS
M. Herichova 8 10 18
J. Culikova 10 7 17
M. Velickova 9 8 17
N. Celarova 8 9 17
P. Dankova 4 12 16
A. Dzurnakova 3 11 14
N. Gapova 8 4 12
L. Srokova 5 7 12
R. Vargova 8 3 11
I. Karafiatova 6 5 11
Z. Moravcikova 6 4 10
J. Kapustova 5 4 9
B. Bremova 1 7 8
V. Konecna 1 2 3
V. Konecna 1 2 3
P. Orszaghova 0 2 2
E. Rakova 0 0 0
12 hat tricks, 4 8-goal scorers, 1 9-goal scorer, 1 10-goal scorer, 11 double-digit point getters. My only question is WHAT THE FUCK was E. Rakova doing? How did she not accidentally get a puck shot off her and in. There were 82 goals. You're telling me she couldn't get a single point? The 2 names above her had weak performances too.
On the Bulgaria side, defenseman Alisa Peneva will be getting some looks from some good teams, as she led the team with a +/- of -34. Not even Rico Fata can accomplish that. Forwards Maria Ivanova and Olga Gospodinova really need to work on their defense a bit, as each were -39.
It's hard to believe that this could happen in a real actual game. I don't even think the NHL all-stars would beat W&J that bad. I'd like to think we could get at least one shot.
The worst part is, this isn't even the worst deficit ever recorded. In a U18 tournament back in 1998, South Korea defeated Thailand 92-0. UNREAL.
I wonder how long the babe in the picture above stayed at the game.
